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<!-- you can have any number of categories here --> [[Category:Mike Huben]] [[Category:Rights|025]] [[Category:Under Construction]] {{DES | des = Rights are a far more complex subject than we usually think. Most people would be surprised at how much that their folk models of rights leave out. Libertarians rely on such simple models because they can lead to the right ideological conclusions. At least four fields consider rights: philosophy, law, economics, and anthropology. A good model would be compatible with all four fields. | show=}} == Natural Rights == Let's get [[Natural Rights]] out of the way first. Natural rights are exactly as knowable as invisible pink unicorns: anybody can fantasize them any way they want. During the Enlightenment, when liberalism was invented, liberal natural rights were a propaganda tool used to undermine the equally fictitious natural rights of kings. But even among liberals there was no agreement about whether slaveholding was a natural right or not, because natural rights are really just words. Bentham famously dismissed the idea of natural rights as "nonsense on stilts". Unfortunately, most libertarians (including Nozick) start with this philosophical abomination rather than more factual alternatives. For more on natural rights, see: * [[Natural Rights]] == Hohfeld's Classification Of Rights == Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld created the standard legal classification of right, duty, privilege (meaning liberty), no-right, power, liability, immunity and disability in a 1913 article that he expanded into a book. Libertarians (and lay people in general) are usually ignorant of these important definitions. For the sake of simplicity, we are only going to consider right (also known as claim right) and duty. A right can be expressed as "R has a right against D to T". For example, Anne has a right against everybody to use her car. '''For every right, there is a correlative duty.''' A duty can be expressed as "D has a duty to R to T". For example, everybody has a duty to Anne to let her use her car. You cannot have a right without creating a duty. Libertarians sometimes give lip service to Hohfeld, but the general pattern is to conveniently forget that rights create duties.[[Robert Nozick]] does not index "duty" in [[Anarchy, State, and Utopia]], and indexes Hohfeld only to refer to a meaning of liberty. [[David Boaz]] does not index "duty" or Hohfeld in [[Libertarianism: A Primer]]. [[The Encyclopedia Of Libertarianism]] does not index "duty", but erroneously discusses Hohfeld and duty briefly (without a citation) under Natural Rights: Hohfeld wrote about legally created rights, not natural rights. [[Jan Narveson]] correctly uses rights and duties in [[The Libertarian Idea]], but doesn't credit Hohfeld or anybody else in the legal tradition. For more on Hohfeld's classification see: * [[Hohfeld’s typology of rights]] == Moral Rights And Enforced Rights == A moral right is a rights claim with its correlative claim of duty. An enforced right is a rights claim whose correlative duty is enforced by threat and/or coercion. Moral rights can coexist in contradictory multitudes because they are only words and not enforced. For example, both Anne and Bob can claim the same car. There is no actual protection with moral rights, and natural rights are an example. Enforced rights, on the other hand, can conflict. Anne and Bob can not enforce exclusive rights to the same car without conflict. That's why law is usually dominant and conflicting rights claims are brought to court to decide a winner. An enforced right can be expressed as "R has a right against D to T and R tells E to enforce D's duty to R. For example, Anne has a right against everybody to use her car and Anne tells the police to enforce everybody's duty to let her use her car. From here on, I am only going to talk about enforced rights and duties. When people talk about moral rights, it is usually because they want them converted to enforced rights. == A Positive Model Of Rights == {{:A Positive Model Of Rights}} == Enforcement Is Necessary To Rights == == Negative Duties Are Free? == == Compound Rights == == Positive And Negative Rights? == == Absolute Rights? == == Spheres Of Rights? == == Notes == ==Related Articles== * [[A Positive Model Of Rights]] * [[What Is Property?]] {{Quotations|title=What Are Rights?|quotes=true}}
A Positive Model Of Rights
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